


No Change

by gingerchangeling



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor, Love Potion/Spell, completely fluffy for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 15:51:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20392243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerchangeling/pseuds/gingerchangeling
Summary: I read part 1 and part 2 of @winterbythesea‘s beautiful ficlets for the prompt on @csprompter: a one shot where Emma gets hit with a love spell where she falls in love with the first person she sees, and she sees Hook and everyone is like “uh oh!” but Emma acts EXACTLY THE SAME AS BEFOREAnd this kind of wrote itself.





	No Change

Killian Jones was many things. A pirate. A scoundrel. And he wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t a bad man. But one thing Killian Jones was not, despite however many people in Storybrooke seemed to think so, was a fool.

It took him the span of David’s call as he reached out to help Swan up off the floor, his heart racing with worry, for him to comprehend the situation.

She’d fallen on the most dangerous potion in the room. And she’d fallen with her eyes shut.

But it was too late- he’d already stepped in front of her and even if he tried his hardest, there was no way to avoid being the first person that Swan laid her eyes on.

When she looked up, he was terrified of what he’d see. Fabricated lust and forced infatuation.

But then she met his eye as she reached for his outstretched hand. And there was nothing. Or rather, nothing different than the usual exasperation and irritation, with just a hint of something…._else._

Maybe it hadn’t been the love potion she’d landed on after all.

“Thanks,” she muttered, wincing as she put her full weight into his hand, pulling herself to her feet. “Oh, that’s gonna leave a mark.”

As she pulled her hand away from him, he heard glass tinkling to the ground and his concern over the contents of the bottle were eclipsed. “Hold still,” he muttered, trying to assess if any of the glass she’d landed on had made it through her jacket. But she didn’t even bother acknowledging him, and he reached out to keep her in place with a bit fo exasperation. “Hold _still,_ damn it, you’ve got glass all over your sleeve.”

She looked down, “Oh damn.” He couldn’t help but internally roll his eyes at the woman. Potentially embedded with several large pieces of glass and _that’s _her response.

“Did any go through?” he tried his best to keep the waver out of his voice, knowing the kind of damage that could have been done.

She looked over her arm carefully, “I don’t think so,” before gingerly removing the jacket and dropping it to the floor. “What was that?”

If it wasn’t the love potion… he gestured to the other concoctions on Regina’s desk, “One of the bottles I believe.” Then he looked over to the Queen. “Please tell me none of these are poison.” He doesn’t feel that he needs to add “poison more dangerous that the bleeding love potion you chose to bring for some reason.”

“She said their potions, not poisons.” Her tone was bordering on condescending, which he did not appreciate. “That’s different, right?” Oh now she was bring in Regina to try and prove how right she was.

“I’m merely trying to rule out the worst,” he snapped, his irritation mixing with his relief that the worst truly had been ruled out, and the flicker of….disappointment. Which he was ashamed of himself for having. “Potions aren’t anything to trifle with either-“

“I wasn’t _trifling._” Even her adorable attempt to imitate his accent could not bring him out of his brew of irritation at the whole bloody situation.” I didn’t exactly _mean_ to hit the thing!”

“Let’s just hope you aren’t about to sprout antlers or –“ he tried to think of something else he’d seen happen.

“Sprout antlers? Seriously? _That’s _where your mind went? You’re so-“

“You hit the love potion.”

Regina’s statement sent a wash of nausea through him. But then he reminds himself that she hasn’t changed at all. She wasn’t acting any differently than usual.

“I _told_ you to be careful.”

He didn’t even bother to try and suppress his eye roll this time. This woman.

“Yes, Swan, the next time a monkey dives at you, remember to be _careful_.” The Queen really did seem to live in her own reality, if she though one’ primary focus would be _falling gracefully_ while being attacked by flying monsters. But more pressing, “Will it work through the sleeve?” He just wanted her confirmation that it wouldn’t so he could relax again and not have to worry that somehow she’d been doused.

“It works the minute you touch it. Clothes or not. Sorry.” He felt ice trickle into his veins. But that wasn’t possible. It it worked right away, then Swan would have been showing some sign of it. Right? “But it shouldn’t last more than an hour or two.”

That eased his mind somewhat, that the effects weren’t permanent. But it still didn’t explain why Swan wasn’t-

“Must’ve been a dud.”

That would explain it. The potion was faulty.

“A _dud? You’re _the amateur around here, not me!” But Killian let himself be satisfied with that reasoning. A faulty love potion. He knew that they were tricky buggers to make. The last time he’d been to an apothecary that had one for sale, it would have cost more than his ship.

So he let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding as her mother spoke up, “Are you okay?”

There was something odd about how she asked the question.

“I’m fine.” Swan shot him a glare. “And do _not_ start with the monkey thing again.”

“Upon my honor, I wasn’t going to,” he muttered, trying to return to their banter from earlier, though his heart wasn’t in it. But despite having told himself that Swan’s reason was logical, and that the potion was faulty, he knew he wasn’t convinced. He was still expecting something to happen. He’d _seen_ what love potions could do to a person in the past. “It’s too easy, and it’s getting old.”

“And you’re the authority on old, huh,” she smirked at him and he gave a put-upon sigh. They’d been around this mulberry bush before.

“_Experienced_, love, and yes I am.” She just rolled her eyes at him as she stared towards the door and even with the worries still churning in his chest, he couldn’t help the grin that stretched across his lips at her exasperation. Her buttons were just too easy to press.

The next hours passed by in a flurry of flying monkeys and witty repartee. They finally wound down the evening at Granny’s, having done what they could during the course of the day, with Swan being no less exasperating or any more lust filled than usual. But in a corner of his mind, he continued to ponder over the events from that morning.

He was standing near Swan, watching the diner’s comings and goings as she and the Queen muttered about something. Regina probably being ridiculous as usual. But he attention was sharply drawn back when he watched Swan go rigid out of the corner of his eye, and a moment later, he face started to flush as an emotion he couldn’t identify flickered across her face.

The worry he’d been able to push to the back of his mind over the course of their busy day slammed back to the forefront.

“What is it?”

Swan blinked, before she snapped at him with a scowl, “Nothing.”

He pulled his head back slightly at the abrupt irritation that she seemed to have discovered. The queen must have said something.

Her smug words a moment later only cemented his theory, “I’m just reminding Emma how all of this stuff _works_.”

“Yeah, okay, thank you, we don’t need a lesson in magic right now, it was boring enough the first time.” Emma’s muttered words don’t ring true to him, and he looks back at Regina, who is still wearing a look of absolute smugness. And then notices that her parents are also watching them, strange expressions on both their faces. Odd.

But Swan seemed to be attempting to impersonate a tomato with how the flush continued to travel across her skin. He can’t help the worry that just slips out, the stress of waiting to see a reaction from her all day too much.

“You all right there Swan?

“I’m fine.” Well if she was up to feeling waspish, then whatever it was must not be all that grave.

“Only you’ve gone rather red.”

“Shut up.”

He bit back the stupid grin that often fought to slide across his face when he was with her. “I like it. It suits you.”

“Shut _up_.”

It was later, in his room at Granny’s that he was finally able to devote all his attention to what had happened that morning. The love potion. Regina’s certainty that it worked.

He reviewed all he knew about magic, feeling that Regina’s comment in the diner was somehow the key to it all. He knew love potions could not actually create love. It was usually some flavor of lust and infatuation. And he’d been told numerous times over the years that nothing can fabricate love. But also that love potions were one of the most dangerous potions ever, because how can you fight against the urges of your own body? To deny how you feel when the object of your desire is literally right before your eyes? How to keep yourself from pursuing what you want most?

The only way he could think of that would allow a person to be unaffected by such a potion would be if that person were already so well practiced at denying themselves that they wouldn’t notice if-

He actually jerked upright in bed, staring blindly at the wall as his mind walked through the odd looks that her parents gave them. Regina’s smugness. Swan’s embarrassment in the diner after speaking with Regina about how magic _works_.

The smile that crept across his face seemed to coincide with the bubbling of warmth and delight that built in his chest until he couldn’t help but give a laugh, shaking his head. He should have figured it out sooner.

He wouldn’t bring it up. It was clear that Regina had clued her parents in on it, and Swan was already embarrassed enough as it was. He knew she would think he was being _insufferable_ if he said anything. But there was no way that she could persuade him to leave her side now. Because he knew.

The love potion had worked.

And Swan hadn’t changed.


End file.
